Small fabric repairs

[J Ryd]

I was planning on doing a dollar patch repair over a small tear and thought, "What a pain in the a$$ to fill a paint gun along with the hassle and mess for this little job." I have previous experience with painting cars and motorcycles and had always made an extra spray can color of whatever I was spraying for future touch up. So I contacted Conslidated about putting Poly in a can. They said no problem. So I did!
Thought I'd share.20191005_122514.jpeg

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[Steve Pierce]

So you had someone put them in a spray can? Please give us details. What a great way to make small repairs.

[JPerkins]

I've had luck with the prevail sprayers for small jobs

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[Jim]

Hi,

Some of the box stores and auto parts places sell them too.

https://preval.com

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=refillabl...l_4b7d3r6ofh_e

[J Ryd]

Almost any automotive paint supply store can do it. Not really cheap at $7 something a can, but way too easy to not have a couple rattle cans nearby for a quickie.

[Pacer42Z]

I use an airbrush I purchased at a craft store and use compressed air out of a rattle can. Easy to use and clean up.

Juergen
Pacer N3342Z

[Tnathan]

Both are good options rather than mixing up more paint than you need for a paint sprayer.

Prevail does a pretty good job in my experience. It is cheap and there is no clean up. For $10 you can just throw it away when you are done. I learned about Prevail from the instructor at a SportAir fabric workshop. The only down side is the spray nozzle is what it is. There are no adjustments or different nozzles. All you can do is play with other factors such as OAT, humidity, thinner/retarder ratio, etc. Thinned Polytone works pretty in a Prevail, but have had to work harder when I tried using a prevail with some 2-part car paint. It had some suspended solids that kept clogging the nozzle and splattering (which may not be relevant for you all).


I have also experimented with an airbrush. Obviously, you don't get the volume or coverage you would get from a real spray gun or Prevail. What you gain is a lot of control over the air/paint mixture ratios, and you can be very precise about how you are spraying and target a very small area if desired. The downside, at least for me, is the you need to be precise with how you press on the trigger. Its not like a spray gun where you can dial in your settings and go at something. Once you find a setting you like, you need to hold your thumb still. If you move your thumb you are changing the air and paint mixture.

I had never heard of anyone using an airbrush before for touch ups. I asked the sportair fabric instructor what he thought of the idea rather than lugging out the spray gun and mixing way too much paint for a little repair. He smiled and said he came up with the idea "first" too when he was asked to do some factory repairs for one of the new cub companies (cant remember which one). He said the guys spending what they do on a glass panel cub get angry when they land their new cub on a backcountry creekbed and puncture the fabric. He said a dollar patch and an airbrush is about as good as you can do, but even then these discerning owners weren't impressed with an "ugly" patch on their "new" plane.

A couple of other tips: He said a tip he learned from an auto painter was to do the repair and then blend the repair area in by adding more thinner and less color in subsequent coats around the repair area so the color slowly fades into the rest of the airplane. It sounds like a good idea, but after I thought about it, I worry if you will get runs if you take this to an extreme and add too much thinner. I guess the answer is all things in moderation. I haven't tried this personally, but I am curious whether it would improve the finished product or set me up for runs in an ever expanding circle around what started as a small repair.

Another tip he had (for a customer that was OCD about having a dollar patch on his "new" cub), he installed an inspection hole instead where the rip was so it looks like an intended inspection location rather than a repair. So, that's another option. . . . well until your plane is dotted with inspection covers